Double murder mystery that fueled America’s obsession with true crime is re-examined in new book
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A beloved reverend and his choir singer lover were found dead in a sex scandal that ultimately led to his wealthy widow being tried for murder.
It sounds like a true crime story from 2022, right? But the tale took place 100 years ago during the Jazz Age – and captivated the nation back then as it will today in a riveting new book by journalist Joe Pompeo.
The deaths of Reverend Edward Hall and Eleanor Mills in 1922 are a ‘sordid tale that still resonates’ a century later, according to a new book Blood and Ink: The Scandalous Jazz Age Double Murder That Hooked America on True Crime by Pompeo, who covers the media industry for Vanity Fair.
The case fueled America’s obsession with crime. At the time, tabloid newspapers tried to outdo each other with outrageous reporting including staging a séance to get a suspect to confess.
But it wouldn’t be for decades that a tip to the police solved the case.
Blood and Ink draws on newly unearthed prosecution material, grand jury transcripts and witness statements that detail how the case began in the most horrific and mysterious way imaginable.
The story of the deaths of Reverend Edward Hall and his lover Eleanor Mills in 1922 are a ‘sordid tale that still resonates’ a century later, according to a new book about the case
The bodies of Hall and Mills were found on September 16, 1922 next to an abandoned farm in New Brunswick, New Jersey, an hour outside of Manhattan. Mills had been shot three times in the face and her throat had been cut. Hall had been shot once in the head
Between the dead couple lay a stack of love letters and by Hall’s left foot was his calling card, removing any doubt about his identity. His calling card is pictured
The bodies of Hall and Mills were found on September 16, 1922 next to an abandoned farm in New Brunswick, New Jersey, an hour outside of Manhattan.
Hall was an Episcopal minister married to a woman from a prominent family while Mills sang in his church choir.
Mills had been shot three times in the face and her throat had been cut. Hall had been shot once in the head.
Between them lay a stack of love letters and by Hall’s left foot was his calling card, removing any doubt about his identity.
Suspicion fell on Frances Stevens Hall, whose ancestors were linked to the Johnson & Johnson dynasty and was worth $1.7million, equivalent to $30million today.
One of the maids, Louise, later recalled eavesdropping on a phone call at 11pm the night before the bodies were found in which Frances said: ‘No, there was nobody else. He was friendly with her. She’s in the choir.’
The murders happened at the beginning of the Jazz Age when America was emerging from the horrors of war and entering a period of excess, chronicled by the growing tabloid industry.
Gangland shootings linked to Prohibition, beauty pageants and crime were staples of newspapers like the New York Daily News, founded just seven years before the Hall and Mills case.
Their biggest competitor was the New York Daily Mirror and the Evening Graphic which stopped at nothing to get the scoop.
Blood and Ink reveals that Mills had been in an increasingly unhappy marriage to her husband of 17 years, Jim.
Sex was ‘out of the question’ and Mills would drown out her husband during fights by covering her ears and shouting: ‘BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.’
St John’s, the church where Hall was the pastor, was an ‘incredibly important’ part of Mills’ life and her ‘devotion only grew’ when Hall arrived.
According to Pompeo, the flames of passion may have begun when five years before their murders Hall prayed by Mills’ bedside when she had appendicitis, saying: ‘You must get well…for my sake.’
Gangland shootings linked to Prohibition, beauty pageants and crime were staples of tabloid newspapers like the New York Daily Mirror, that would stop at nothing to get the scoop
Suspicion fell on Hall’s wife, Frances Stevens Hall, whose ancestors were linked to the Johnson & Johnson dynasty and was worth $1.7million, equivalent to $30million today
In the summer of 1922 as they took separate vacations, the lovers wrote secret diaries about each other. Hall wrote in his that ‘every moment you are with me’ as he traveled north to Maine.
Back home in New Brunswick they would swap love letters in Mills’ hymnal at the church – in one of them she said she wanted to ‘rub your tired body’.
Police established that on the night of the murders Mills was seen walking toward the farm where she was seen in a ‘dreaful hurry,’ shortly followed by Hall.
The riveting book by journalist Joe Pompeo sheds new light on one of the Jazz Age’s most scandalous murder investigations
Soon after, shots were heard and a woman screamed.
An early theory was that Mills and Hall were going to a long established meeting spot, and somebody followed them there, sparking a confrontation that turned deadly.
Jim Mills had a watertight alibi as he was with a downstairs neighbor at the time.
Frances’ brother gave her an alibi too, backing up her claim she was home all evening.
But Mills’ daughter Charlotte, 16, told the press: ‘A woman did it, and it was a woman who was jealous of my mother and wanted revenge.’
Her frequent musings about the case swelled the interest to ‘epic proportions’ but the case against early suspects fell apart.
By now the farm where the bodies had been found had become a macabre tourist attraction with vendors selling popcorn and peanuts by the roadside.
Tourists pillaged the crime scene, taking away anything they could grab from the farmhouse including rugs and chairs.
The case took a bizarre turn when an eccentric pig farmer named Jane Gibson claimed to have heard a fight at the crime scene between two men and two women which led to shots ringing out.
Yet her story changed with each telling and became more vivid, leading to questions about its credibility.
A grand jury failed to return any indictments against Frances or her brothers and the case went cold – causing the tabloids to pursue it with a vengeance.
Among the more absurd attempts to solve the case was an effort by the New York Daily News to get Jim Mills to confess during a seance in which his late wife would haunt him from beyond the grave.
The newspaper’s editor ordered one of his female reporters to pose as a mystic called Madame Astra and invite Jim to a reading, which he agreed to.
But Jim insisted that ‘I never killed her’ because he ‘couldn’t do anything like that.’
When the journalists dressed as clairvoyants tried to visit Jim at his home weeks later to claim he had lied and that the spirits were angry, he chased them away with a carving knife.
The New York Daily Mirror undertook an eight month investigation of its own leading to the creation of a dossier of ‘evidence.’
Among the questionable claims was that Louise, Hall’s maid at the time of the murders, was paid off after the killings.
The case took a bizarre turn when an eccentric pig farmer named Jane Gibson claimed to have heard a fight at the crime scene between two men and two women which led to shots ringing out. Gibson, know as the ‘Pig Woman’ was dramatically taken to court in an ambulance as she was in the hospital with cancer
Frances Hall and her brothers Willie and Henry were put on trial in Somerville, New Jersey, which became overrun by journalists from across the country. Her brother gave her an alibi, backing up her claim she was home all evening
Mills’ daughter Charlotte, 16, told the press: ‘A woman did it, and it was a woman who was jealous of my mother and wanted revenge’
The Mirror supposedly considered luring one suspect to a cemetery where a journalist in a white robe pretended to be the ghost of Edward Hall and announced: ‘You killed me!’
In July 1926, four years after the murders, the Mirror handed its file to the New Jersey governor who reopened the case.
The Mirror celebrated the news with a front page cartoon of Frances kneeling over Halls and Mills’ dead bodies.
Frances Hall and her brothers Willie and Henry were put on trial in Somerville, New Jersey, which became overrun by journalists from across the country.
Among the witnesses was Ralph Gorsline – a one time suspect – who described hearing gunshots between 10pm and 10.30pm the night of the murder followed by a ‘tortured moaning’.
Among the strongest pieces of evidence were similarities between Willie’s fingerprints and those found on the calling card left on Hall’s body.
But the biggest witness was Jane Gibson, the ‘Pig Woman’ from 1922, who was dramatically taken to court in an ambulance as she was in the hospital with cancer.
She testified that she saw Frances and Willie standing by a car near the scene of the crime and soon after heard a voice shouting: ‘Explain these letters! Goddammit!’
After that she heard a hitting sound and ‘somebody’s wind going out’ and then a voice saying: ‘God damnnit, let’s go.’
According to Gibson, she saw Henry Stevens – Frances’ brother – at the crime scene, a flashlight went out and she heard a woman’s voice saying: ‘Oh my! Oh my! Oh my!
But the defense countered with compelling testimony from Willie and Henry that they had nothing to do with the murder.
And when Frances took the stand, she denied it too – but shocked the court by admitting that her husband had been cheating on her with Mills, a confession which damned her to a lifetime of shame.
The case remained unsolved until 1969 when Julius Bolyog called the New Brunswick police department while on his deathbed at the age of 67 due to a bone infection. He claimed Frances’ brother Willie confessed to plotting the murders
The case lasted a month and after hearing from 178 witnesses the jury took just over five hours to return not guilty verdicts on all the defendants.
Frances responded by filing a defamation lawsuit against the Daily Mirror which was settled for an undisclosed sum rumored to be the ‘largest ever made by any newspaper’.
The case remained unsolved until 1969 when Julius Bolyog called the New Brunswick police department while on his deathbed at the age of 67 due to a bone infection.
He claimed that Willie was a good friend of his who had spoken to him frequently about planning the murder.
The report was not followed up on for months by which time Bolyog beat the infection but still talked to detectives.
He claimed that Willie hated Hall and knew about his affair with Mills and said that one day he was going to ‘take care of him’.
According to Bolyog, Willie confessed to arranging to murder Hall and that Mills put up such a fight the killers had to ‘cut her to pieces.’
It was the best clue that police had ever got but by then Willie, like his sister and brother, was long dead.